Lighter Shade of Pale
by DianaLecter
Summary: Perhaps the shortest fic I've written. Hurrah! Takes place after 'Hannibal' - film adaptation. Dr. Lecter reflects.


Lighter Shade of Pale 

  
  
Author: DianaLecter (mischalecter@hotmail.com)  
Rating: PG  
Timeline: After _Hannibal, _the movie. Follows canon.  
Summary: Dr. Lecter reflects. Response to 'Variations of Goldberg' Quest.  
  
Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Thomas Harris. They are being used for entertainment purposes and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
It is dawn.  
  
The dawn of a new day, some sentimentalist might quote. To me, it is only dawn, no more, no less. Another word. Another syllable. Another hour.   
  
Though I hardly ever witness its emergence, dawn does not strike me as particularly peculiar. I never classified myself as a man to appreciate something only when I do not have it, and in all honesty, I cannot recall missing the sunrise when I was restricted of access. That is not to say I would have declined its viewing if offered. I was hungry enough for any sign that the world had not come to an end outside my cell. For the proof that there was color beyond gray.  
  
A sane man only becomes insane when instituted.  
  
I have it at my disposal now, but it does not interest me. Instead, I remain locked behind my chamber door like one of Poe's mournful ravens, not reveling in any sense of loss, rather in recollection and rest. Solitude is blissful. It is essential. It is sedating. Most importantly, and perhaps most tragically, it is the prison I have kept to myself outside the material realism of bars and concrete. After all this time, I am unsure if I approve of my small world, but I never decline its sensory. It is not because such is all I know. That excuse is weak and derived from extreme lethargy, and neither is a quality I claim. Rather, this dismal truth is all I have ever cared to become acquainted with. I construct my world on foundations that bring me pleasure and seek out what I want with little regard to the wants of others. I have no inclination to deny or twist this indispensable fact to please the common man. Despite the consequences of blatancy, it is the genuine and I have no shame in it. I am a creature based on self-sufficiency, and, consequently, a factor of that merits egotism.  
  
The flaw in most beings is the inability to realize we are all egotists. Denying it only makes you more so, for it sets yourself in the mindset of ascertaining some level of humility. Humility is not tangible, and no one can ever truly claim possession.  
  
Incongruity brings this world to its lowly state.   
  
All of this is considerably inconsequential. The endless ramblings of a madman, one might say. But then, we are all mad in certain ways. Who is to justify the validation of one individual's strain of insanity over another?  
  
But then, where would we be without our contradictory behavior? Undoubtedly lost in confusion, even more so than now.   
  
I would not call my current state bewilderment, or even sorrow, though I cannot refute the astringent essence that tingles at my nerves every time I recollect the events of only a few nights ago. I contract in the uncomfortably human notion on how either party could have confronted the given issue with more forethought. And yet we were as we were, I was left with the cold but albeit indisputable taste of her uncertainty, knowing she felt herself justified in such a manner. I left her with not the most passionate of kisses, but unquestionably the most memorable. My attentions would have been a little more directed if I thought she would accept them.  
  
She would and did not. I cannot say I was surprised, or even disappointed. Of course, such candor is only human, however much I wish to deny my association with the illogical race, and the more instinctive urges still become too richly tempting to disregard.  
  
I had my kiss, and she had hers without needing to ask for it. Without needing to push her pride asunder and admit that was what she wanted from me. To firstly make such a confession is to disclose the ghastly truth to oneself. I fear Clarice will never come to that, though that is nothing to my fear that there is nothing to come _to. _  
  
What striking revelations.   
  
She is unlike any woman I have known, and our relationship, on that basis, is unique to any I have ever had. She knows me as I am.  
  
The events that concluded our last—and now—most notorious meeting, were ineffectually the result of extreme carelessness and lack of insight. How can I defend myself on these self-made allegations? I cannot, for such anticipation would always be in vain. Clarice cannot be predicted. She always does the opposite of what is expected, and even if she does not, she does it in the _most _unforeseen manner.  
  
I suffered a minor infliction to ensure my freedom and hers, but can honestly claim I felt no pain. Physical awareness dulls when in the presence of such denunciation. I don't know why it should surprise me, but it does. Every few years, I am reminded that despite every law of logicality, I _am _human and remain predisposed to whimsical error.  
  
I was reminded of my own humanity that night. After you taste so much blood, you forget the flavor of your own, and its feel acts as that aide memoire of mortality. Clarice has never doubted her state, never gone too long without sampling life. She has never _lived, _of course, but she manages to wake each day, forever destroyed but never defeated.  
  
She has never uttered the phrase, "Vae, puto deus fio," nor had the need to.   
  
We are gods within our own rights. I relinquished my grasp on forever to touch her. She forfeited hers to retract it back.  
  
Her life, as she is accustomed, is too similar to a film to ever be considered reality. The taste of her blood does not reinstate her mortality as it does my own. Rather, it assures her that she is _indeed _alive. She wakes each day in her manmade world with her old school views that have no place in such conventional society. Yet, she remains perfectly, and happily, oblivious to the evils that conspire around her, confronting them with little indifference for she knows not how to react when presented with kindness. Thus, she grows bitter with each year, pleasantly no longer naïve but will someday lose that charm that made her so unique. A destructive pattern. Killing the spirit. She gives herself to their avarice as I yearn to claim it as my own.  
  
I wonder if she settles with this comfort because it is familiar or because it is what she wants.  
  
Odd how we are always at the same place but likewise miles apart.   
  
Perhaps she will mend her broken wings and fly away. Perhaps the day will come when morality slams her so harshly that she loses sight of it as it rebounds, only to slam her again before leaving completely. Perhaps she will sink into retirement, a forgotten name and face, with the remnants of her sorrow milking her through her days.  
  
And perhaps not.  
  
Not happy thoughts, but momentarily comforting, ashamed as I am to admit it.  
  
Am I scorned lover, bitter from rejection and naturally hoping the worst for she who drove me to this pivotal state of questioning? I do not believe so. I have never left anything wanting from Clarice, and can only hope she is happy in the life she chose. It commands her faith and love, controls her abusively, which she inwardly acknowledges but will defend to the death if dared uttered by another. Her dedication is admirable in the old romantic's sort.  
  
I will miss her.  
  
Life, as always, goes on. There will be plays and operas, books and symphonies, wine and food; there will be air and light, rain and darkness. My senses are not dulled by dissatisfaction. Perhaps, in light of a recent reminder, substance pleasures will intensify.   
  
And yet, such consolation does little to alleviate me. Uncanny I should be affected like this. However, despite the rules of rationality, the essence of true sound thinking, I cannot help the feeling that more than a reminder mortality came and left as a result. Indeed, life will go on, a never-ending show produced by masterful puppeteers.   
  
I will relive myself that moment forever.  
  
The moment we died together.   
  
  


FIN 


End file.
